“Of course.” REI’s tone carried the particular dryness she’d learned from observing him. “Purely tactical.”
He ignored her.
Through their bond, he felt Selena wake. Felt her confusion at finding Zyxel beside her and him gone. Felt the brief spike of worry smooth out as she registered his presence elsewhere on the ship—alive, alert, already working.
Love brushed against him through the neon-green thread. Warm. Steady. Eternal.
He let himself feel it for exactly three seconds.
Then he locked it away, set his jaw, and walked toward the war.
31
Selena
Two days.
Two days of rest. Two days of tea. Two days of Zyxel hovering at my shoulder like a shadow with scales, watching me with those chartreuse eyes that tracked every movement I made.
I pressed my palm against the viewport and watched the stars streak past. The royal observation lounge was quiet at this hour—just me, my tea, and the vast emptiness of space rushing toward something none of us wanted to do.
The cup was warm in my other hand. Some floral blend Zyxel had insisted on—good for the pregnancy, he’d said. Good for stress. Good for everything except the gnawing restlessness that had been building in my chest since I’d woken up.
Two days of rest had cleared my head. And now my mind was working again.
Worrying again.
Planning again.
“You’re supposed to be relaxing.” Zyxel’s voice came from the seating area behind me, where he’d stationed himself with atablet full of research papers he wasn’t actually reading. “Kaede was very specific about the relaxing.”
“I am relaxing.” I took a sip of my tea without turning around. “This is my relaxed face.”
“Your relaxed face looks remarkably similar to your ‘planning something dangerous’ face.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
The CEG Station loomed in my thoughts like a beast waiting to pounce. Neutral territory. A place where diplomacy was supposed to protect me, where the rules of interstellar engagement were supposed to mean something.
But the Verya didn’t play by rules. They never had. And the Quaww had declared war on us over my existence.
I traced a finger along the viewport’s edge, feeling the faint vibration of theAbyss’s engines through the hull. My daughter shifted inside me—a flutter, barely there, but enough to remind me what I was carrying. Who I was carrying.
What happened if they separated me from my mates? What happened if no one could reach me in time? What happened if there was a single moment—one heartbeat, one breath—when I was alone and vulnerable and the Verya saw their opening?
I needed a weapon.
Not my mates’ protection. Not Vowels’ intervention. Something that wasmine.
I reached for my Oetsae through our bond—a gentle brush against his golden presence in my mind.
“You’re brooding,”he pathed, his mental voice warm with amusement.“I can feel it.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Same thing, with you.”
I smiled despite myself. He wasn’t wrong.
